Her Soldier, His Warrior

Big Brother

A/N: credit to Horns.N.Jams on Instagram for this gorgeous piece I commissioned them to do!

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"Good news, we have a healthy baby to welcome into the family!" Soren says cheerfully as he enters the room where his son and cousin were playing with blocks while Warlon was sharpening a knife, Sigfrid was reading some papers and Yvette was reading a book.

"Baby!" Harrow shrieks excitedly as he jumps to his feet, accidentally knocking over the block tower he and Reist had been building and earning himself an outraged cry from his cousin. "Oops...I'm sorry..."

"Pick up your mess, then you can go see your sibling." Warlon scolds as Reist runs over to his father, now crying. "Oh come on, it's just a pile of blocks, you can rebuild that."
"Come on bud, lets clean this up and you can go see your sister." Soren says as he walks over to help his son clean up.
"Sister?" Harrow asks, perking up.
"Yeah you got a baby sister, and she's just as cute as you were when you were born. She's got so much hair too, you were almost bald as a baby."
"He was not, his hair was just very light." Sigfrid scolds as she puts her papers down to walk over to her husband and pick her son up. "Reist help your cousin clean up, don't you wanna see the baby?"
Reist sniffles before he's put down so he could run to help his cousin and uncle place the blocks in the bin they kept them in.
"Wish mom let me stay in the room to see the birth, I could have helped." Yvette sighs as she shuts her book. "Of course she said no because "you're too young for that", how am I gonna be a good doctor and stand seeing weird icky things if I'm not allowed to see it in the first place?"
"You won't be helping with births, unless you are trained to be a midwife." Sigfrid points out and sends a grin to Soren. "Otherwise you would have fainted like a certain someone the first time he saw a baby coming out from between his wife's legs."
"You are never gonna let me live that down are you?" Soren asks with a frown. "It was just ONE time, I was fine when Reist was born!"
"Because Warlon fainted." Yvette laughs as the two younger children laugh too.
"Shut up." The elf mutters loudly before scooping up both the children into his arms. "Come on, before Enya falls asleep so she and Soren could discuss names."
"How about Sarai?" Sigfrid suggests as she and her siblings follow her husband out of the room.
"Nah, I promised Callum that I won't name my kid that, give him the chance to name one of his kids after his mom since I already nabbed the name Harrow for my kid." Soren chuckles as they walk. "I haven't had a proper look at her little face yet, so when we do then I'll know what name fits her best."
"Don't name her anything stupid." Warlon comments. "Otherwise she'll dislike it."
"Well I plan on giving her a beautiful name that's fitting for her, and special too. Everything about her is special, being born on a surprisingly warm spring day in Del Bar for one."
"Am I special?" Harrow asks.
"Yes, because you are my favorite nephew." Warlon chuckles. "And that you came out so cute despite having such an ugly father."
"Hey!" Soren protests as his sisters laugh. "Don't tell my kid stuff he's gonna repeat!"
"Oh good we're here!" Yvette yells as they arrive at her brother's room and knocks on the door. "Mama! We're here!"
The door opens wide enough for Hildr to poke her head out and puts a finger to her lips. "The baby is asleep right now, no noise." She warns them in a low voice. "When you come in, keep your voices down, we barely managed to put her to sleep.
"Sister!" Harrow whispers excitedly as he is passed onto his grandmother before she opens up the door a bit wider so they can all come inside.
The room was partially dark, thanks to the thick curtains hanging on one of the windows, but there was enough light for them to see Enya asleep on the bed. She had one arm draped over a woven basket next to her with bits of a dark teal colored blanket poking out of it, and she did not stir.
Soren walks closer to the bed to lean over his wife and kiss her cheek before gently shaking her shoulder. "A mhuirnín, I brought the family to meet the baby, Harrow really wants to see his baby sister." He whispers as his wife stirs, hugging the basket closely to her. "I know you can hear me, wake up."
Hildr smiles as she puts Harrow down on the bed so he can crawl over to his mother. Once reaching her, he pushes her hair out of the way and gently blows air in her face, causing her to groan and open her eyes.
"Hi mommy." He whispers as he tries tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Did having the baby hurt? Uncle says having babies hurt."
"Not this time sweetie, mama is fine and so is your sister." Enya says softly as she lifts a hand to touch his face. "You wanna see her?"
"Can I hold her?"
"Only if you are careful."
Harrow nods eagerly as his mother sits up and reaches into the basket to pull out a very small dark haired baby wrapped in the blanket that lets out a little noise in protest. His mother made soft shushing noises as she passed the baby to his father, who carefully took it into his arms.
"Here's your sister, isn't she cute?" His father asks as he carefully turns the baby in his arms so he could see.
The baby was...very small. Her face looked kinda wrinkly too and her tongue was sticking out of her mouth, her dark downy looking hair sticking out in weird angles like his dad's did after sleeping, and skin was kinda pinkish looking.
"She's tiny." Harrow whispers. His mother's belly during her pregnancy always looked huge, so he had assumed the baby would look bigger too. She was smaller than the length of his father's lower arm, how could something that tiny make his mom's belly look so big?
"You were smaller bud." Soren chuckles as he moves to put the baby on his son's lap as Enya moves his little hands to hold the baby. "There, now be gentle, she has very fragile bones."
The baby squirms in his arms, her little face scrunched up in discomfort before relaxing as she makes herself comfortable, her little face now pressed to his shirt.
"Aww, she knows it's her big brother." Sigfrid cooes as Reist is put on the bed. "You wanna say hi to the baby?"
The little half elf's response is to immediately shake his head, but crawls over to Harrow to peek over his shoulder at the sleeping baby.
"So what are we naming her?" Enya asks as her husband pulls out a folded slip of paper from his pocket. "Oh is that the name list we made a few months back? I thought we got rid of it."
"Nope, kept it on hand just in case." Soren says as he unfolds the paper and holds it out to Harrow. "Why don't we let Harrow pick? You wanna do that bud?"
Harrow nods and leans forward to examine the paper. From his father's messy scrawling, he could see some names that did seem nice. Evonne, Bethany, Roxanne, until he found one towards the bottom under a name was was scribbled out that looked like the name "Soren".
"What's that one?" He asks, pointing at the name.
"The name Soren?" His father asks as he looks at the paper. "Oh that's my name, I wrote it in as a joke. Your mother wasn't too amused about the idea of having a second Soren so we ditched it."
"No, the other under it."
"Sonya? Oh that one, I think Corvus suggested it. Said it was the name of a relative from his...mom's side of the family? Or was it his dad's? I can't remember, but he suggested it months ago, I thought it was nice and wrote the suggestion down."
"Sonya....sonny...sunny!" Harrow exclaims, but his loud yell causes his sister to start crying. "Oops...."
"Shhh, it's okay sweetie, it's okay." Enya chuckles as she takes the baby back to console her. "It's just your brother, he got a wee bit excited just now."
"I'm sorry." Harrow mumbles. "I'm really sorry."
"Eh, she would have woken up eventually, you just startled her a bit." Soren assures him and leans forward to ruffle his hair. "Lets just be a bit more quiet around your sister when she's sleeping from now on, okay bud?"
Harrow nods before scooting over to his mother, Reist following him so they could keep looking at the baby.
"So...you keeping the name Harrow picked?" Warlon asks as the baby starts to calm down. "It'd make no sense to let him pick a name and not use it."
"Does she look like a Sonya to you?" Enya asks her son.
"Kinda." The child responds.
"Yes." Reist says quietly.
"Then Sonya it is, Sonya Mulligan." Soren says with a smile. "Perfect."
"Can I hold her again?" Harrow asks his mother. "I'll be super quiet this time, I promise."
"Maybe after I feed her and your father burps her." Enya says as the baby makes a noise. "And she might be hungry now, so I'm gonna need you guys to go right now."
"I'll get you something to eat then, come on bud, mama needs some privacy." Soren says as he scoops Harrow and Reist off the bed and drops his nephew into Sigfrid's arms. "Say bye to mama and Sonya!"
"But I wanna hold Sonya now." Harrow protests with a pout. "Why I gotta leave?"
"Harrow Julian Mulligan, watch your tone." Enya scolds. "You can wait about an hour or two before you can hold your sister, she's not going anywhere if you leave the room. Now go."
Harrow pouts again before nodding. Just then, Sonya let's out a loud whine before blinking her eyes open, revealing them to be a bright blue color similar to her mother's.
"Aww she's got her mama's eyes, you see Harrow?" Soren asks as he leans forward so his son can get a better look. "I had hoped you were gonna have her eyes when you were born, but you got grandpa's eyes instead."
"If he had blue eyes, he'd look like an exact mini version of you." Enya comments with a laugh.
"Can she see me?" Harrow asks. "She's staring at me."
"I think so, but her vision isn't so good right now. She'll be able to see over time."
"And with that, we have to go." Soren says as he leans to kiss his wife on the forehead and gently pinch his daughter's cheek. "I'll be back in an hour or two, and I think this little guy needs to eat too."
"Not hungry!" Harrow protests before his stomach grumbles. "Okay a little."
"I'll have the cooks whip you up something." Sigrid chuckles. "Come on, you can see your sister later when mama is done feeding her."
---
"Aww, look at them. This reminds me of when Reist was a baby." Soren chuckles as he watches his son snuggle against the basin his sister was sleeping in. "It's so cute."
"Your mom mentioned you liked to sleep next to your sister like that." Enya says as she approaches the bed to lean her head against her husband's shoulder and hug his arm. "You think they'll both be like this with the next one we have?"
"We just barely had a baby and you want another?" Soren asks jokingly. "I honestly don't mind, but let's wait before having another one."
"Not now, in a few years." Enya scolds and smacks his arm. "But I am hoping the two will be excited to have another sibling or two in the future, when it happens. And I do hope they develop a good relationship like what you and Claudia had as kids, I don't want them to fight and bicker so much."
"It's normal for siblings to fight and bicker, but we'll just make sure they get along." Soren assures his wife before they climb into bed and lay on either side of their kids, Enya on the left with Harrow and Soren on the right with Sonya. "We'll raise them right, I promise."